Defense: Nunes Didn't Mean To Kill

October 23, 1996|By Beth Taylor of The Sentinel Staff

SANFORD — Angela Jo Lauderdale pounded on the door of a building near the vacant lot where a man had just slit her throat. By the time the door opened, the former police dispatcher was lying in a pool of blood on the doorstep.

John J. Nunes, 24, is on trial in Seminole County this week in the Feb. 26, 1995, slaying of the ex-wife of a former Lake Mary police chief.

Nunes' lawyer, Dan Mazar of Winter Park, acknowledged that his client killed the 29-year-old woman but said he didn't mean to. The pair had negotiated for sex, but then Lauderdale walked away because he had no money, Mazar said.

Nunes followed, hoping to persuade her to stay, then swung at her after she hit at him, according to Mazar. He said Nunes, of 285 Lorraine Drive, Altamonte Springs, panicked and drove off when he realized the razor knife he held in his hand had cut her.

''It's not a noble intent that he had,'' Mazar said, '' . . . but the only thing he decided in advance was that he wanted to have sex with this woman.''

Prosecutor Michele Heller told the jury Nunes intentionally killed Lauderdale. She said Nunes has given three versions of what happened Feb. 26, 1996, the night an out-of-work, depressed Lauderdale walked out of her boyfriend's Altamonte Springs apartment after he left for work.

He told his girlfriend, who questioned him after hearing that a slaying had occurred on a night when Nunes had come home sweaty and nervous, that he had swung his knife at three people who approached him in the dark.

He told police that he had picked Lauderdale up as she was walking, that she agreed to have sex with him but refused when he admitted he had left his wallet at home, and that he cut her with his knife after she swung at him.

He told his boss he had picked up a hitchhiker and that two black males had chased him.